Our view: The chronicles of much wasted time: A modern witch hunt

It seems almost quaint now. In 1964, the FBI mounted a substantial investigation to determine whether a top aide to President Lyndon Johnson, Jack Valenti, was gay. The investigation never proved that he was, but documents obtained by The Washington Post show how much bureau Director J. Edgar Hoover's interest in the sex lives of others consumed FBI time and manpower.

Valenti came to Washington with LBJ on the plane bearing John Kennedy's body and quickly adapted to the capital. He left the White House in 1966 to become head of the Motion Picture Association of America, in effect, Hollywood's chief lobbyist. A fixture on the Washington scene, he held that position until 2004 and died in 2007 at age 85.

Even though Valenti had married in 1962 -- and would go on to have three children -- something convinced the FBI in 1964 that Valenti might be gay. The question had some sensitivity because that same year another top LBJ aide had been arrested for having sex in the men's room of a YMCA a few blocks from the White House.

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Still, you would think a four-time decorated pilot of a B-25 who flew 51 combat missions in World War II was entitled to be anything he wanted in civilian life.

But the FBI's top brass pestered Johnson until the president agreed to let the bureau investigate his aide, which agents proceeded to do at length, focusing on a photographer friend of Valenti's whom the bureau found had "homosexual tendencies."

The investigation came to nothing and the Post said it didn't seem to affect relations between Johnson, who repeatedly stood up for his aide, and Valenti or between Hoover and Valenti.

The question of top government officials' sexuality must have seemed so important at the time, but we hope the same allegations made today would invite the response: "So what?"